Flame On!

I swear I wrote a post yesterday all about my surgery and now it's gone. Stupid technology!

Anyway, last night I stayed over at Seester's house. We had Million-Dollar-Happy-Grass-Fed-Ribeyes and were they ever good! I grilled them on Bro-N-Law's gas grill. Note to Darryll: Time for a new grill.

I'm not sure what was going on with the grill, but it was like grilling over a house fire. I'd put the Happy-Ribeye on the grill and when I came back after a few minutes, there was large amounts of smoke billowing out of the grill. YIKES!

Fortunately, nothing bad happened and I was able to cook the meat and was it ever good. We served it with my balsamic reduction, baked potatoes and a salad.





Happy Friday!

Nubbins Gets Her Surgery!!

Yep, went to see the hand surgeon yesterday, Dr. Engel. He specializes in hand overuse injuries. Most of his clients are musicians. That means, Fatass is like a rock star, only different!

I'm scheduled to have my Transverse Carpal Ligament released at 2:00 on Tuesday, June 21.



Here's how it's gonna to go down...

I will be awake for the procedure and it will take 10 minutes. I show up 15 minutes before.

The surgery is on Tuesday and I'll be back to work on Friday.

I will have a big wrap thing on it for two days. Then I will remove it, take a shower and wash it, then stick an adhesive bandage (that will look strangely like a strip of bacon) on it.

For the next few days I'll keep a clean bacon adhesive bandage on it. Just need to be careful of it, but can resume my normal life

Here's the best part, I will not be wearing a brace after the surgery or ever again! Well, I suppose if the procedure doesn't work, then I will, but he said that Fatass is a great candidate...she doesn't smoke or have diabetes, oh, and she's young!

There is no rhyme or reason as to why people get the carpal tunnel. Said that there is too much stuff in the tunnel and that causes the blood vessels to compress. During the surgery, he will show me the very pale nerve, release the ligament, then blood will immediately flow to the nerve and it will turn bright pink before my very eyes. Guess that’s about when I’ll pass out. ;)

I told him that the odd thing was my right hand was feeling pretty good. He said that he’s seen folks that have had it in both hands but once they have surgery in one hand, the other hand somehow fixes itself. Weird.

Since Adventure-Poppy will be gallivanting around Europe somewhere with MomJean while I'm under the knife (really, it's okay, I'll be fine...), Seester has happily stepped in to take me for the procedure and then take me home. She'll even spend the night with me. Sounds like a party, if you ask me!

Let's talk about the dinnah...I'd been marinating my NOM NOM Chicken since Tuesday night. As I was spatchcocking him, I noticed my knife was making an odd turn. Either that or he was deformed to begin with. I think I'll go for the latter.



He tasted good all the same.

Tonight, Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer and I head down to Seester's to cook some ribeyes for her, Dad and Nephew-Lucas. Unfortunately, Bro-N-Law is somewhere in the Elk Grove area taking care of his Father and that means he ain't surfing and that means he ain't too happy. He has definitely earned his way through the pearly gates!

Oh, if you're wondering about the reference to "Nubbins", that's one of my office nicknames because of my disproportionately sized pinkies.



Chow!

My Sunset Magazine Came...

There was a recipe in it for Ribeye and Spring Onions. I had to have it. I'd been to the grocery store and found a great deal on some NY Steaks. There were four on sale from $46 to $24. Depression-Era-Poppy was so proud!

So anyway, I pretty much followed the recipe...kinda...sorta...not really:

Two fat steaks
1/2 red bell pepper
1/2 yellow bell pepper
4 Spring onions
1 bunch baby asparagus
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp Kecky's Chili Salt
2 TBS chopped parsley
2 TBS minced garlic

Mix the oil, vinegar, salts, parsley and garlic. Spoon over the veggies and marinate for at least an hour. Can also marinate over night. Throw it all on the grill.

Uber-NOM!





Friend-Co-Worker-Drea read in her prevention magazine that Tumeric pills are evidently being used as an anti-inflamitory with much success. Dr. Andrew Weil says it's as good as ibuprofen. Since I'm taking some pretty heavy-duty NSAIDs for that silly carpal tunnel, I figure i'll give these a try. I'll let you know how it works out.

Oh, I have an appointment tomorrow with the hand surgeon. Hope I can get the surgery pronto cause I'm tired of not sleeping!

Interesting thing, as I was playing with the pills, I noticed my hand changed color.



Note to self...don't play with drugs!

Chow

Well that was a busy weekend!

Friday, Boss K and Co-Worker-Andrea took me to lunch for a late birthday treat. Guess who was there? TIM LINCECUM! Here he is driving away...



Oh, lunch was really good too!

Saturday was the annual Derby Party hosted by Tom and Gayle. This party is held every year at The Riptide. Fortunately for us, we moved within crawling distance of The Riptide. Since this is one huge party, Hospitality-Poppy offered up our oven and fridge if needed. Our oven was needed...for a 22lb ham! I could barely get the oven door closed.

Tom dropped that bad-boy off around noon and we kept it warm until party time.





Oh, and I'm the proud owner of a very large ham bone!

What a party...



Here we are losing our money:



Sunday was a Kasa Kecky Project Day. Our goal was to put a little split-rail fence in the backyard by the rain forest. Unfortunately, the dirt was way to hard to get through. Time for Plan B.

We have these bricks that we had at the Presidio house. They were part of what we called our college dorm bookshelf. We bought them used. So now, we repurposed them where the little fence was supposed to go.

Here's the before, where I dug the little ditch:



Here's the after. It looks a lot better now cause I put all the patio furniture back, but you get the idea:



So now that we got that all taken care of, it was time for The Mama to relax! Happy Boozy Mother's Day to me...I mean Fatass. I wouldn't be caught dead in a picture dressed like this!



Oh, when I got up on Sunday morning, Cabin-Fever-Jax really wanted to take a run on the beach. I had one of those Chuck-It things, but on one of my rock hunting expeditions, I lost it. I went to buy another one, but they were out of stock. I found the next best thing...actually, better than the Chuck-It...Retired-Racquetball-Player-Poppy's racquetball racquet (how many times can you use "racquet" in one sentence?).

Down to the beach we went. I can hit that ball a long, long way. Here's how the Pooped-Pup spent the rest of the day:







Happy Monday!

Salmon and Shoes!

We had a heatwave yesterday and it wasn't a Spare-The-Air-Day so I thought it would be fun for Grill-Masta-Poppy to grill up some salmon and veggies. I bought some salmon, asparagus and an orange bell pepper. Cruciferae-Poppy also wanted some steamed broccoli. I wanted my wasabi sauce for the salmon. Here's how it went down...

I prepped the veggies and the salmon.





First thing I did was mince some garlic and shallots. I sliced shallots too. The sliced shallots were sauteed and then added to a mixture of soy sauce, water, and a little chili-sesame oil. This would be used for the various marinades and my wasabi sauce.

I took some minced garlic and shallots; to that I added rice vinegar, chili-sesame oil some of the soy mixture and olive oil. Whisked it and put it in the bag with a big smashed knob of ginger.

Then I took some garlic, ginger, olive oil, a touch of rice vinegar and a little of my Genmaicha Tea Salt and put it in my mortar/pestle and squished it until it was a nice paste. Put that on the salmon.

Now for the wasabi sauce. This originally came from the Atkin's diet, but I've embellished it a bit. Okay, it's 2 parts sour cream to one part mayo. Add those minced shallots...oh, about a tablespoon or so. Then get some of that wasabi-in-a-tube and squirt some in to the mix. Finally, add a couple of tablespoons of the soy mixture. All of this is to taste so have at it. It's the best tasty-treat-sensation ever!

Drizzle the sauce over your salmon. Well, I drizzle it over everything...Okay, I even eat it by the spoonful. Right up there with pickle juice!

Of course, I forgot to take pictures of the final product. I did get a picture of Jax-The-Salmon-Skin-Connesewer in her Queenie-of-the-Nile pose:



At least Patience-Poppy didn't put the salmon on Jax's head this time. That took days to get that stink off.

Last year around Seester's birthday, Dad told Seester he was only going to give us $50 from now on. I think this is so funny cause I don't know why he feels we need to be given $$ for our birthday, but I'm not going to argue with him. Anyhow, he gives me my birthday card last weekend and inside is $100. I show it to Seester and say "what gives?" Now I feel bad, so ask her if she wants some of it. Fair is fair. She says she doesn't.

Well, now I've got $100 burning a hole in my wallet. Do I:

a. Put it in my savings;
b. Buy something for the house;
c. Make a donation to some needy charity; or
d. Buy a pair of shoes.

Um, well...Of course I bought a pair of shoes!



Have a great day!

Not much going on...

After my swell time last week as a stay-at-home-Mom, it was time to come back to work yesterday. As per my usual Monday, I got all the keys to the gubument vehicles and check them for gas. Wouldn't you know, one of the Uplanders says "Change Oil Soon." Go figure since we just did that a few weeks ago. So now I had to figure out how to get that stupid warning light reset. I figured it out. The Internet is an amazing thing.

Once that was done and I was walking back to my office, Barbara-The-Librarian says "Did you see the little truck has a flat tire?" Are you kidding me??? I think FFM-Laurie has ordered me some coveralls too. I'd hate to get my dress all dirty! My new nickname around the office is Bubba-Cletus.



Have I mentioned recently that I feel so lucky to have a job. I guess when my gig is up here I'll open an auto repair/cafe.

On Sunday, Fix-It-Poppy decided she didn't like where the garage door opener button was and wanted to relocate it to a more convenient place. When I saw what she was doing, I asked if she'd turn off the power since I don't relish the thought of BBQ-Poppy. So once she tried to relocate it and turn the power back on, one of the 15amp breakers decided it didn't want to work. This is the breaker that controls the garage, the master bedroom and the kitchen lights. DOH! Lucky for us, I know how to pop the garage door so it'll work manually.

A quick call to Amy-Mae's hubby and Charley-The-Electrical-Superhero to the rescue! He showed up last night with all his electrical accoutrement. He diagnosed the problem (which we had a feeling)...the breaker was dead. So he showed Chicken-Fried-Poppy how to change it out. He also traded out that breaker for another 15amp breaker that would get my kitchen lights and master bedroom back. Now I don't have a light in my closet.

Oh, the trials and tribulations of homo-ownership. The good news is that Lit-Up-Like-A-Candle-Poppy now knows how to change or a faulty breaker. It's a good thing!

Check out our new curtains courtesy of Friend-Carrie:





Carrie is selling her house so she wanted us to have these. They were made by Carrie and Becky's friend, Vince. Vince has since died, but what a very talented man! I just love these curtains. They're blackout too!

Okay, that's it.

Birthday Celebration, Grand Finale...

The last day of my Birthday celebration ended with a party at Seester and Bro-In-Law's. What a fun day we had! Here are the highlights:

Seester loves to decorate. I always refer to Halloween as the Opening of the Decorating Season at Seester's house. Starts then and ends sometime in January.





There was cake:



We were too full to eat it, but Seester sent some home with us. We managed a few bites when we got home...it was NOM. So were the deviled eggs she made. She sent us home with those too. I know what I'm having for breakfast!

There was a gross little jumping minkey!





I guess the next worse thing to a poopy-throwing-minkey would be a jumping one. Kind of like one of those jumping spiders, only different.

There were horseshoes:





I suck at horseshoes, always have. Odd, since the word "shoe" is in the game; you'd think I'd be a natural. Keeping score isn't bad except for that whole math thing.

There was Rockband:



I'm also a spastic when it comes to playing an instrument, so I end up singing, whether anybody likes it or not. Last time we did this, Dad seemed to just love it. This time he went to his bedroom. Seester and I realized the last time, he didn't have his hearing aids. I guess we don't sound as good as he thought we did.

And of course, Birthday-Boozy-Kelly:



Not much to say about that other than when I got out of bed this morning, I had little birthday confetti dots stuck to my face.

The best part, which I forgot to get a pic of was my dinner of chicken and dumplings!!

A fun time was had by all, but now it's time to get back to my normal routine. Can't wait for next year's festivities!

Bye bye.